Nokia's Windows 8 Phone: So, Umm, That's It Hunh?

I think it is safe to say that the technology world was not amazed nor astonished by today's announcement of Nokia's new Windows 8 phone line. Partly this is, of course, because we knew roughly what was coming before the announcement. It would be a new Nokia phone, or several of them, running Microsoft's Windows 8 for phones. So it isn't that they could surprise us with the OS or anything. However, while there's a great deal of dutiful reporting of what was announced there's not very much, if any, of the ecstatic joy that accompanies the new phone releases of certain other companies.

One thing that many reports emphasise is "wireless charging". And I have to admit that as someone living over here in Europe that seems to be a solution to yesterday's problem. Yes, certainly, when every phone manufacturer uses a different adaptor or charger interface then the idea of going away, or even out for more than eight hours, can be discomforting. For while you're out you might need charging but cannot find anyone with your interface. Or, worse, going off with your family and finding that your Nokia charger does not fit the wife's iPhone one nor the three variants of Sony, Samsung and some incredible Chinese something or other that the children have. I speak from experience here you understand. In such a situation wireless charging sounds just marvellous.

Yet, over here in Europe at least, we now have one standard phone to charger connector. The EU sat everyone down and snarled at them until they agreed (the argument was that all that copper tied up in all those different adaptors was a waste of resources). Given that wherever you go that has electricity there will be someone with a charger and that charger will charge your phone, this idea of wireless charging seems like a solution to a problem we no longer have. You might still have it, to be sure, but we don't.

The prices of the new phones, which will be available later this year, weren't immediately available.

New sexy technology is one thing. But what is the price we must pay for it? Just as examples, it would be one thing to offer something better than an Apple iPhone at a higher price that an iPhone. A daring strategy even that would be. Offering something as good as an iPhone at $50 would be a real winner. So it's not really possible to understand how good this offering is without knowing what the price points are going to be.

Then we get faster LCD screens, better camera software, the ability to use the screen with gloves on....and, well, maybe this is all terribly exciting to some segment of the public. Maybe it isn't. You can most assuredly make up your own mind as to whether it is exciting to you. But the best averaging of what everybody thinks that we have is the market. In this case, the stock market in the shares of Nokia: